


A Point of Honour

by sanguinity



Series: The Hornblowers' To Command [4]
Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: F/M, Fatherhood, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27582004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: Bush meets his son.
Relationships: Horatio Hornblower/Maria Mason, William Bush/Horatio Hornblower, William Bush/Horatio Hornblower/Maria Mason, William Bush/Maria Mason
Series: The Hornblowers' To Command [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1416214
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	A Point of Honour

"You're coming, too," Captain Hornblower said, and when Bush protested that people might think it strange that a man, after spending the better part of a year at sea, had brought his lieutenant to his first tender reunion with his family, Hornblower had snapped, "You're coming too, Mr Bush, and that's an order."

Thus Bush found himself, painfully self-conscious, being ushered into the Hornblowers' cramped Plymouth rooms, where Maria sat on the loveseat nursing Bush's newborn son. Her face was pale with exhaustion, her hair untidy, and yet she was still beautiful, and she beamed with pleasure to see her husband.

"Horry, my angel!" she exclaimed, and held out a hand for her husband. After he dutifully kissed her cheek, she turned to Bush. "Mr. Bush," she said, the affection in her eyes belying the formality of her words. "I'm so glad you came."

Bush hardly knew what to do under the suspicious eye of Mrs Mason, but he bowed and stiffly offered his congratulations. He awkwardly greeted Mrs Mason, too, then retreated to stand uncomfortably near the door while Hornblower, at his wife's invitation, seated himself by her. He bent over the baby, his head close to Maria's; Maria folded back the blanket so Hornblower could see the child better. The babe's hair was dark, like Bush's.

"There, are you done eating, you big boy?" Maria asked the child, and Bush studied the plates hanging on the wall while Maria rearranged baby and blanket and returned herself to modesty. She burped the baby while Hornblower watched with horrified interest. His expression would have been amusing, had Bush not been a bundle of nerves himself.

"Here, Horry, he's safe enough to hold now," she said, and passed the child into Hornblower's arms. Hornblower showed only a moment's hesitation and took the babe with reverent care. Maria fussed over them both, spreading a cloth to protect the shoulder of her husband's uniform, and Bush desperately wished he had not come.

"So you're the godfather?" Mrs Mason accused, from close by Bush's elbow, and he was unable to repress his guilty start. "Missed the christening, you did." She eyed him critically. "Why Captain Hornblower couldn't have found himself an admiral for the babe, if it had to be a seaman—"

"Mama!" Maria scolded sharply, then composed her face into something more pleasant and entreating. "Mama, it went clean out of my head in the excitement of Horry coming home, but little Horatio needs more cream and I can't possibly go out for it now. I'm afraid it's quite urgent."

"Well, can't _he_ go?" Mrs Mason asked, gesturing to Bush, who quite obviously had nothing better to do. Indeed, he had already taken up his hat in his eagerness to be gone, despite not knowing anything about what kind of cream a baby might need.

"Absolutely not," Hornblower answered, his eyes still on the child. "We're waiting for news from the ship, and it's essential that he be here with me when it comes."

"There's sixpence there on the table, Mama," Maria wheedled, then beamed at her mother's grumble. "Thank you, I don't know what I'd do without you."

Mrs Mason passed close by Bush again on the way out, muttering to herself about flighty daughters and useless men… Then the door shut behind her.

"There!" Maria said, with a sigh of relief. "With any luck she'll stop to have a dram on the way back. Oh, my Will! Come meet your son properly." She held out her hands to Bush.

"Come here, Bush," Hornblower said, and with the babe still in his arms, moved aside to make space between himself and Maria. "Don't argue," he said, fixing a stern look on Bush.

There was hardly any space between them, but Hornblower was firm and Maria insistent, and so Bush sat, his hat on his lap, trying to make himself as narrow as possible so as not to jostle the baby or his captain on one side nor touch his captain's wife on the other. He failed miserably at both.

"Hold your arms like so," Maria said, folding Bush's arms, and then his captain turned toward him, and to Bush's horror, was bundling the baby into his arms.

"Sir! I shouldn't…"

"Nonsense, Will," Maria said, pressing close to support the baby's head during the transfer.

"You have a better right than I," Hornblower said, withdrawing his own arms, and then suddenly the responsibility for not dropping the baby was entirely Bush's.

"Meet your father, Horatio William," Maria said, rearranging the blanket around the baby's face, which was squinched tight in displeasure. At being passed about? At Bush's inexpertise in holding him? He had not felt this awkwardly ham-handed since he was a spotty-faced midshipman confronting his first naked woman. The child was as light as the lightest round-shot — but even an eight-pound shot was deadly. Little Horatio kicked with surprising strength, twisting in Bush's arms, and Bush held on more tightly.

"I thought we agreed… That we wouldn't…" He was shocked at how rough his voice sounded.

"It can be acknowledged this once, Bush," Hornblower said, his voice surprisingly kind. "He should know who his father is."

Little Horatio yawned then, his mouth stretching into a perfect tiny 'o' — his entire body gave itself over to the yawn, in fact, his frame too tiny to accommodate such a mighty gesture. The yawn passed, and the babe blinked up at Bush with an expression of great perplexity.

"He has blue eyes," William said in wonder. The baby's eyes were a dark, rich blue — the blue of the open sea under a ship's keel.

"Your eyes," Maria said. "Your son."

A prickly heat rose behind William's eyes. He wanted with sudden ferocity to keep this child safe from the terrible horrors of the world; he knew with a fearsome certainty that he could not. The child was so tiny, so vulnerable, so fragile. Away at sea, Bush would be helpless to protect him — anything might happen here in Plymouth, and William never the wiser. But if William were to live his life ashore, betraying his captain and giving up his duty to the Service to run away with Maria (if she would even have him), that was no better. To shirk his duty would be to allow England's shores be ravaged by invasion and war as France's had been… How would his son fare then? Bush gasped for breath; it sounded in his ears like a sob. Hornblower stirred uneasily, and Maria's hand shot out across Bush's lap to Hornblower's. Hornblower winced, but was still.

"Sir," William said, turning to Hornblower. He was shamed to hear his voice break, and to his dismay found that he could not see Hornblower, Hornblower's face a pale smear beyond unshed tears. William's arms were full of his son — he could not dash away the water in his eyes. He ducked his head in an attempt to master himself, and to his shame, the tears dropped onto his son's blanket.

Hornblower cleared his throat and put his hand on Bush's knee. "As my own son, Bush," Hornblower said with solemn conviction, seemingly knowing what Bush had been about to ask. "I swear it to you. I'll cherish him as my own."

The tears flowed freely then, and William turned away to hide his gasps.

"Oh, my dear Will," Maria said, and putting her arms around William, drew his head down to her shoulder. There was an indistinct conversation above his head, half whispers and half dumbshow, then Hornblower squeezed William's knee.

"I'm going to watch for Mrs Mason," Hornblower said, and stood.

"Horry!" Maria called after her husband's fleeing back, but to no avail: the door shut quietly behind his retreat.

With Hornblower gone, there was no reason to hold back. He cried freely into Maria's shoulder, his sobs unstaunchable.

"There now, Will, there now," Maria said, rocking William and the baby, too.

The squall was fierce, but did not last for long; soon he drew back from Maria's shoulder with a shame-faced apology.

"Now don't you mind that, Will," Maria said, and wiped William's face with the cloth that had rested over Hornblower's shoulder. "I cried for days after Horatio was born. There now, he's a fine, healthy boy, isn't he?"

William turned his attention back to the baby, who was blowing bubbles while he frowned, drool on his chin. "He's so tiny," William said.

Maria laughed, a joyful, rippling sound. "Not so tiny as he was. He's grown so much already, my big boy." She touched the baby's head, smoothing his scant hair. "And he'll always be a piece of my Will to keep with me," she said wistfully. "I miss you both so much when you're away at sea."

Little Horatio scowled mightily, the expression almost comical on his tiny face — for a moment William was reminded of the baby's namesake, contemplating some subtle question of navigation. The baby grunted in effort, his lips pushing out into a pout.

"Oh dear, I'd best take him before he soils your uniform," Maria said, whisking the baby out of William's arms. A redolent odor perfumed the child's wake. Maria stood, the baby over her shoulder while she one-handedly began arranging cloths and blankets over the table. "You can tell Horry it's safe to come in. And you'll stay to dinner, won't you?"

"No, ma'am," William answered, and Maria looked up from her fussing over the baby to frown at him. "It's best I not be here when Mrs Mason returns." He was sure his misery was as obvious as that of a homesick middy; he did not want to have to bear Mrs Mason's unsympathetic scrutiny.

"Oh, Will!" Maria said, too distressed to correct William's address to her. "Don't mind Mama, I'll send her to the pub, if she hasn't gone already."

"I only came to pay my respects," he apologised. "I have business back at the ship."

"Oh, _won't_ you stay? You belong here, Will. We want your son to know you, just as he knows Horry."

But that raised a new fresh squall of emotions in him, of enough ferocity to threaten to dismast him.

"He's a fine boy," William hurriedly said, taking up his hat. "You should be very proud," he added by rote, unable to speak to his own storm of feelings. Maria's dismay was obvious, and unable too to withstand its force, he darted forward to kiss her cheek — but she turned her head to meet his lips, unwilling to be taken leave of so coldly. Her mouth was warm and tender, and again emotion threatened to overset him. He broke away, then was undone by how to take leave of the baby, who was in the middle of having his nappies changed — an unappetizing and embarrassing state for a young gentleman.

"You'll come to dinner another night, won't you, Will?" Maria asked plaintively, a pin already in her mouth, and William nodded.

"Yes, ma'am."

" _Maria,_ " she corrected him.

"Yes, ma'm, _Maria,"_ he corrected himself, and fled out the door before emotion could overwhelm him again.

Hornblower was standing just outside the door, his shoulders' hunched against the night. He looked up, startled from his reverie, and for an instant William had the impression of a deeply unhappy and lonely man. Then Hornblower straightened into a posture that would suit the quarterdeck, and the impression was gone as quickly as it had formed.

"Not staying to dinner?" Hornblower asked briskly, and William mutely shook his head.

"Perhaps that's for the best," Hornblower said, studying William. He reached out to resettle William's lapels — an unusual intimacy for Hornblower, but William found the gesture strengthening and comforting, nonetheless. "Don't go back to the ship just yet," Hornblower said, and pressed a coin into William's pocket. "There's an alehouse in the next street. Go have a celebratory drink on me."

"Sir," William protested.

"I'd join you," Hornblower said, and cast a rueful look at his door. "But Maria should like to have her husband again, I imagine, and…" Hornblower seemed to flush in embarrassment. "And I should get to know my son."

That declaration, so quickly on the heels of Maria's similar one, prompted a welter of embarrassment in William, too.

"Yes, sir. Sir, I wish to pay for the boy. I know I can't contribute much—"

"Hush, now!" Hornblower scolded. "Not here."

"Sir," William pleaded.

"Not one word," Hornblower snapped. "I won't hear of it, and I won't discuss it in the street."

"No, sir," Bush said, dejected at being so rebuffed.

"Enough of that now, Bush. Be off with you, and don't hurry back. There's nothing happening tonight that Orrock can't handle." His smile was almost kindly, and he reached out to awkwardly pat Bush's shoulder. "I'll see you at the ship later."

He found the alehouse easily enough, and the ale, while not good, was drinkable. His surroundings had settled into a lonely and melancholy sort of blur when Bush felt a touch on his shoulder. "Get your poxy hand off me," Bush growled, knocking it free and turning to bring his enemy in sight—

Hornblower was looking down at him in consternation.

"Cap'n Hornblower, sir! Forgive me, sir," Bush said, remorse rushing in. He tried to get up, and succeeded only in knocking over his tankard.

Hornblower quickly righted it. "I said I'd see you back at the ship."

"Yes, sir," Bush agreed. "You said to have a celebrat'ry drink first. I'm celebrating."

"So I see."

"Will you celebrate with me?" Bush raised his hand for the barmaid. "We'll drink to your new son."

Hornblower lowered Bush's hand. "No, you've had quite enough already. Can you stand?"

"Will you not drink, sir?" Bush pleaded.

Hornblower took Bush's arm. "Come on, up you get." Hornblower hauled Bush up out of the chair; Bush tried to help, and the room swayed about him.

"Do you not want a son, sir?" Bush asked, dismayed.

"Hush now!" Hornblower scolded, casting a glance about them. "None of that."

"I'm sorry, sir. I know it's an awful burden, to be saddled with—"

 _"Quiet!"_ Hornblower snapped with such ferocity that Bush's mouth shut on the next word. Hornblower grimaced, his look set and unhappy. He looked around the room. "Wait here. Don't speak, and wait here."

"Aye aye, sir," Bush said, and watched in confused worry as Hornblower pushed his way across the room.

It was a tragedy that Hornblower didn't have a better man at his side. To Bush's sorrow, he himself was only a workaday kind of officer, not the brilliant lieutenant that Hornblower deserved, a man who could fully comprehend and perfectly execute all of Hornblower's plans. That was bad enough, but now Bush had gone and carelessly saddled his captain with an unwanted son. Hornblower was a proud man, Bush knew, too proud to raise another man's get as his own. And yet the alternative — letting it be publicly known that his wife had had a child by his lieutenant… The shame of that would destroy a man as proud as Hornblower.

"I'm sorry, sir," blurted Bush, when Hornblower returned. The room seemed to sway evilly, sway as _Hotspur_ never did at sea.

Hornbower stooped to put his shoulder under Bush's arm, looping his own arm around Bush's waist. "Come along now. I've rented you a room. You can't go back to the ship like this."

"No, sir. I'm sorry, sir," Bush agreed. This was as much as he deserved; Hornblower would want another lieutenant for the _Hotspur_ after this disaster. Bush hoped that _Hotspur's_ next lieutenant would love his captain as much as Bush did; Hornblower ought to have a brilliant lieutenant, it was true, but he required one who would care for him as he deserved.

It was a long, bumping trip up the narrow staircase at the back of the ale-house, Bush's feet as heavy and clumsy as iron shot. Bush put great effort into navigating the stairs, falling once; Hornblower was forced to put a steadying hand down to the treads in front of them. "C'mon, up you go," Hornblower encouraged, heaving Bush back onto his feet again. "Thank god I didn't try to get you up the ship's side."

"I can board _Hotspur,_ " Bush insisted, professionally stung. "I could be _much_ drunker than this and still board _Hotspur._ "

"We would have been fishing you out of the drink," Hornblower retorted. Bush missed the next stair in his haste to reply, and once again pulled them down in a tangle of limbs. "Concentrate on what you're doing, Mr Bush," Hornblower ordered, and Bush, full of remorse, tried.

Four steps later they reached the short corridor at the top of the stairs, and Hornblower steered them toward a nearby door. "In here," he said, and managed to thread them both through the narrow doorway. Two more steps to the bed, and he dropped Bush on it. "No, the other way around," he said when Bush tried to lay down, then pushed and prodded at Bush, harassing him unmercifully. Finally satisfied, Hornblower lifted Bush's legs onto the bed and let him be, sitting himself at Bush's feet. Hornblower was unbuckling Bush's shoe, deaf to Bush's embarrassed protestations, when there was a knock at the door: the innkeeper with a basin.

"I can hold my liquor," Bush protested indignantly.

"I'm sure you can, sir," the man replied, and Bush took offense at his tone.

"There now, that'll be all, thank you very much," Hornblower said, putting a restraining hand to Bush's shoulder and ushering the innkeeper out the door with the other — the room was small enough that Hornblower could reach door and bed at the same time. Hornblower shut the door firmly behind the man.

"What am I going to do with you?" Hornblower asked in despair, when the innkeeper had gone.

Remorse rose up in Bush, urgent and overwhelming, and he clutched at Hornblower's sleeve in his need to make it known. "I'm sorry, sir. You'd do right to turn me out. Me saddling you with my get, sir, it's unconsh— un—"

"Shh, shh," Hornblower soothed. "Lie back." He sat next to Bush's hip and took Bush's hand in his. "Shh, now."

"You never wanted a child," Bush said, still hot with remorse. "Not like this."

Hornblower grimaced. "Only way it could have happened."

"But you don't—"

"But I do," Hornblower said, and his face twisted in anguish. "God forgive me, I do want a son. I…" He bit his lip, and again Bush saw that lonely and unhappy man who had been waiting in the street. "You're not going to remember any of this."

"I will," Bush declared stoutly.

Hornblower shook his head. "You won't. Bush, forgive me, I didn't know. I had no idea, not until I held him. I've been unspeakably selfish. You were meant to be a gift to Maria, and if there was a child, then all the better — god knows, I'll never give her one myself. But when I held little Horatio…" Hornblower shook his head again, biting his lip. "I've committed a great wrong against you, Bush."

"Sir?"

"Several great wrongs. It was unconscionable, wanting you for myself — it you ever hang, it'll be because I put your head in the noose. And now I've stolen your son from you, too." He bent his brow to Bush's hand. "I don't deserve your forgiveness, Bush, not after what I've done. That should be your family in Driver's Alley, not mine."

"Sir!" Bush hardly knew what to do in the face of Hornblower's distress. Reckless with drink, he endeavoured to sit up and put his arm around his captain's bent back, but his stomach cramped uncomfortably from the sudden movement. "Sir! … _Sir!_ "

The last was a cry of distress — Bush's gorge rose, and he retched violently.

"The basin!" Hornblower exclaimed, diving for the floor and pressing the object into Bush's lap just as Bush began pumping ship. When Bush finished, spitting into the bowl to clear his mouth, Hornblower was rigid and green, breathing through his own mouth, his face turned determinedly to the wall.

"I'm sorry, sir," Bush said, ill and dizzy, vaguely aware that he had behaved badly in front of his captain.

"No matter," Hornblower said, daring to peek at Bush. He replaced the basin on the floor, avoiding looking directly at its contents. "We'll just keep that handy. Lie down now, no more talk. Do as I say."

Bush was more than willing to lie down, and Hornblower returned his attention to Bush's shoes. Bush lay there quietly, accepting the tugging on his distant foot.

"I have a son," Bush said.

Hornblower made an unhappy noise of agreement and replaced Bush's leg on the bed with a pat. "You do."

"Mum will be so happy," Bush added, smiling to think of his mother with a grandson. "The girls, too." His sisters would be delighted with the little man, whisking their nephew away in a deluge of thwarted motherhood.

Hornblower grunted, his head bowed and shoulders hunched, and Bush frowned, trying to puzzle out why Hornblower was so unhappy. Awareness came to him in a muddle: the child was Hornblower's now — Bush had forgotten. Entirely Hornblower's, and not at all Bush's. It was Hornblower's mother who would have joy of a grandson, not Bush's. Bush's mum would never know her grandson. It would break her heart, never meeting him, and Bush turned his face into his pillow, crying in sympathy with his mother's sorrow.

Some part of him expected to hear the room door shut, as Hornblower fled Bush's tears, but it never came: Bush cried into his pillow, and Hornblower sat hunched miserably at the end of the bed, one comforting hand on Bush's ankle.

Bush woke in bleary agony in an un familiar room. His bladder was fit to bursting, his mouth foul, and the scent of sick hung in the air — the first was remedied more easily than the second two. Fortunately he had not fouled his uniform with sick; his return to the ship would not be any more disgraceful than it need be. His watch, he discovered when he had the perspicacity to check it, had wound down during the night, but it was broad daylight out in the street. Already broad daylight, and Captain Hornblower had expected Bush back at the Hotspur the night before.

No, that was not right. His head was like cotton wool, but Hornblower had been _here_ the night before. Bush had gone to Driver's Alley with Hornblower to meet Maria and the babe — even through his sore head, their memory stoked a sentimental longing in him. Then there had been the Drover's Arms, and then… The images were hopelessly confused: Hornblower's arm around Bush on a narrow staircase; Hornblower tending to Bush while he lay dizzy and sick; Hornblower patting Bush's leg while he cried. That last could not be correct, and the possibility that it was — that Bush had cried in front of his captain, and his captain had comforted him — harrowed Bush to his marrow.

It was a sick and remorseful William Bush who made his way back to the busy Plymouth dockyard that morning. Repairs to the _Hotspur_ were still continuing apace after her engagement in the Goulet, and the ring of the carpenters' axes and mallets reverberated painfully in Bush's sore head. On gaining the entry port, Bush saluted the quarterdeck, and a smirking Foreman returned the salute; Bush made a note to stripe his hide later. Hornblower was nowhere in sight. Bush briefly considered repairing to his cabin for a fortifying shave and a fresh uniform, perhaps a much needed cup of coffee, if one could be found… But no, those were the actions of a coward. Bush's failings were many, but he was not yet a coward.

"Come!" Hornblower called when Bush knocked on his cabin door. Bush, steeling himself, entered. "Ah, Bush! I was wondering what became of you."

"My apologies, sir. I don't know what came over me last night. My behaviour was reprehensible, sir."

Hornblower stared at him, unreadable, before looking away. "Don't give it another thought, Bush," he said stiffly. "It was perfectly understandable."

There was no warmth in the statement, and yet it was still more generous than Bush deserved or expected. Bush looked down at his hands, and resisted the urge to wring them. "Sir. If you'll forgive me, sir. I wish to pay for the child, sir."

Hornblower scowled. "No. Absolutely not."

"Sir!" Bush protested.

"You already have your mother and sisters to support. I won't hear of it."

Bush flushed a dark red. "Sir, you've been good enough to take the child in—"

" _Good_ enough?" Hornblower exploded in consternation. Bush made to speak, but Hornblower barked, "Silence!" and Bush swallowed his next words. Bush watched in confusion as Hornblower covered his face with his hands, then made fists on his desk. He seemed hunched with misery, and as if through a dim mirror, Bush remembered that same posture from the night before: _That should be your family in Driver's Alley._

"I haven't been _good,"_ Hornblower gritted out. "I have been selfish, and I have been irresponsibly reckless."

But Bush did not hear him, for he was coming to a realisation of his own.

_We want your son to know you._

_You're coming, Mr Bush, and that's an order._

"No, sir," Bush said, daring to contradict his captain — for he understood now, or thought he understood, what his captain had been trying to do. "You've been generous. More generous than I can say."

"That's enough, Mr Bush," Hornblower ordered, but Bush set his jaw mulishly.

"Let me speak, sir, please sir. I never would have had a family, not any other way. You know me, sir, I'm a regular ship husband — left to myself, I don't spend enough time ashore to have a sweetheart, nor the salary to pay for one, either. I'd live and die alone, sir, but for you."

"You have your mother and sisters," Hornblower corrected.

"It's not the same, sir. You know it isn't. But Maria and little Horatio — you could have kept them to yourself, sir, you know you could have. Sent me away in disgrace, like a shameful memory, and none the wiser."

"I was _selfish,"_ Hornblower accused.

"No, sir. You were _generous,_ sir. You could have sent me away, but you welcomed me instead. You insisted I…" Bush swallowed hard then, unable to express his fierce depth of love for his commanding officer, nor the sweetness of his affection for Maria. The violence of his feelings for his child — that, too, was beyond ken. "You and Maria and the baby — there's nothing I wouldn't do to protect the three of you."

"You'll hang someday because of me, Bush."

"No, sir. I _won't,_ sir," Bush said, hot with the fervour of conviction. "Because you would protect me and Maria and the baby, just as I would protect the three of you."

Hornblower said nothing, only put his face in his hands.

"You know it's true, sir," Bush insisted.

"It's true," Hornblower admitted, dragging his hands down his face. He looked tortured, fit for weeping. "God help us both, it's true."

"There, sir," Bush said. "You're my family, the family I never would have had but for you: you and Maria and little Horatio." He didn't dare assert the corollary: _and I'm yours._ That was too much of an imposition on Hornblower's affections — and yet he knew, too, that Hornblower and Maria would never turn away from him, never leave him alone in the cold. Maria had too much affection in her heart for that, and Hornblower too much honour and loyalty.

Hornblower sighed heavily, and when he looked up, Bush read defeat and resignation on his face.

"Then we're doing this properly. You're coming to dinner tonight, Bush. Not—" He cleared his throat in a welter of embarrassment, a wave of his hand referring to gallows-worthy activities that had followed their previous dinners ashore. "Just dinner," he said firmly. "But properly, this time. You hurt Maria's feelings last night."

There was a petulance to Hornblower's words that suggested that he, too, might have been hurt by Bush's flight, but Bush had too much sense to comment on it. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry for that, sir."

"Just don't do it again."

"Yes, sir, no, sir. And about the money, sir…"

"I won't take your money, Bush."

"A man supports his family, sir," Bush insisted.

Hornblower studied Bush. "I don't need your money. And Maria wants you, not your coin."

"I know, sir. Nevertheless, it's a point of honour."

Still Hornblower studied Bush. Bush felt unaccountably nervous — nervous that here at the bounce, Hornblower would shut him out after all. Despite everything just said, Bush would remain no more than a stud to service Hornblower and his wife. If that was all Hornblower wished him to be, then Bush would accept it — and yet he thought his heart might break, too.

At last Hornblower's mouth twitched into a smile — wistful and perplexed, but a smile, nonetheless. "Well, if it's a point of honour, Mr Bush."

"Thank you, sir," Bush said fervently, his breath coming in a rush. "Thank you."

Hornblower shook his head. "A sensible man would have had done with us a year ago."

Bush grinned. "I haven't the sense God gave a rock, Anne always said. She's—"

"No, I have this," Hornblower interrupted him. "Your second sister, I believe. Yes?"

Bush felt a rush of giddiness that Hornblower should remember or care to distinguish his sisters from each other. "Yes, sir. My second sister, sir. With enough sense for all the rest of us."

Hornblower nodded, then composed his face into a stern expression. "You can tell us about her at dinner, then. In the meanwhile, I want a proper eye kept on the crew rigging the new foremast. I don't want any surprises during our first Channel storm."

"Aye aye, sir," Bush answered, light with the relief. "I'll see to it, sir."

"See that you do," Hornblower answered gruffly. It was clear from his manner that nothing of their irregular arrangement on shore — neither its familiarity nor its sentimentality — would be allowed to affect the efficient workings of the _Hotspur,_ but that was as well: Bush was not so much as a fool to think that any softer feelings Hornblower might have toward him would survive any laxness on Bush's part with respect to Hornblower's ship. For himself, Bush was simply happy to have an avenue by which he could express his devotion to Hornblower — God knew the man would never accept any tenderer expression of affection. There was a pleasing reciprocity in it, too, although Bush would never dare voice it: Hornblower would care for Bush's baby, as Bush cared for Hornblower's.

"Will that be all, sir?" Bush asked, and saw Hornblower start out of a reverie — Hornblower's face abruptly flamed into colour, and he dropped his eyes. Bush smiled inwardly, but knew better than to ask.

"Yes, that will be all, Mr Bush," Hornblower said, and Bush, taking his leave, went to see to Hornblower's ship.


End file.
